Darkness' Light
by JMK758
Summary: A lost, damned soul encounters a stranger in the park.


'Touched by an Angel', the characters and situations, are © Moonwater. Martin O'Connell is a private detective I created some 35 years ago (as of 2010). This in an unrecorded incident from a few months after a major change in his life.  
The usual legal disclaimers apply.  
Please review.

Darkness' Light  
by JMK758

Utterly silent, he moves through the park toward the woman seated on the bench. She's oblivious to him, gazing at the stars and the sliver of the moon. With the honed senses of the predator, he's aware both of her and their solitude. At two-fourteen the city is asleep, the huge park deserted. Even the crickets and other night creatures, sensing danger, are silent, fearful.

He sits down on the bench two feet from her. The nearest lantern is twenty feet away, they are in shadows yet with his hunter's vision he sees her. Pretty face, full breasts, delightful figure - he's so sorry but her own carelessness has made her his victim. He doesn't want to do this to her - he never wants to - but he must.

She turns her head slowly, favors him with a dreamy smile. She seems content with the peace of the night, unafraid of the stranger beside her. He smiles back and she returns her gaze to the stars.

"Heaven is so beautiful tonight," she says in a dreamy, melodious voice, a brogue he hasn't heard in too long.

"You're Irish, aren't you?" he asks in the same tones. The question is an empty one. It really has been a long time.

"Yes," she replies, glancing at him with a smile.

He knows she's recognized a fellow traveler. It only makes him sorrier.

He wishes he could turn from her, from what he must do to her.

x

She returns her gaze to the stars, returns to her question. "Heaven is lovely tonight, isn't it?"

"Heaven. I used to know heaven," he says, unable to keep bitter loss from his voice. There had been a time when he knew it well, saw it in the eyes of his beloved Lin.

'Why talk to her?' he wonders. 'Don't talk to her. Don't try to get to know her. Do it. Get it over with.'

He tries so often not to make friends. Don't talk to them. Don't give them anything they might remember. Do it. Do it and go.

Yet something about her - her words, her tone, something about her seems to compel an answer. 'Don't talk to her.' "Now Heaven and I are enemies. We'll never see one another."

She turns her head to him. "Heaven is for everyo–."

Their eyes meet, he can stand it no longer, can't stop it.

He sees it in her face, how her expression goes … empty. He has her. She is no longer her own woman. She's his.

No one has ever been able to resist. He wishes that someday someone would.

Keeping her gaze, he stands and extends his hand. She reaches out, her brown eyes seeming lost in his blue ones. She stands, says nothing.

She can't say anything. She won't remember anything.

He walks her off the paved path onto the grass, out of sight behind a large lush bush. He doesn't want to hurt her.

He turns her to him and feels his eyes change, blue giving way to red, the intensity of the night changing. He can see her aura, her life essence. It's brighter than most, more intense. He hasn't seen such intensity, such life, in a very long time. "I'm sorry," he whispers.

His fangs grow, teeth elongating into sharp points. He bends his lips to her, kisses her.

She returns his kiss, not because she wants to but because she must. Soon lust will quicken her heart, quicken her blood. He won't have to keep her long. Channeling pleasure, he'll make her feel good, passion and lust paying back for blood. She won't remember his bite, his drinking her blood, she'll only remember the pleasure, the orgasm she'll have. And she won't remember that clearly either, just like the sense of a wondrous dream long out of reach.

It's working slowly, she's not responding. They're kissing, he's channeling his sensations back into her yet they don't overwhelm her as they should.

He reaches between them, reaches for the top button of her red blouse and it seems daylight rises to fill his closed eyes.

Her hands come up and cover his, startling him, making his break the kiss, pull back. Surprise gives way to astonishment. Impossible. She can't - shouldn't _move_. Worse than impossible, her skin is glowing, shining brightly. Her brown eyes, moments ago placid, are alight. Her long red hair gleams as with flame.

x

"Don't be afraid, Martin O'Connell," she tells him placidly in that melodious accent so rich of the home he can never see again. But she _can't_ be aware - no one ever is!

If what he's seen already hadn't surprised him enough - _she's _telling _him _not to be afraid? - her knowing his name shocks him, sends him over into panic. Her skin, her hair, shining! Impossible!

"I'm not going to hurt you," she promises him.

If his heart could beat it would pound for escape, but she's not through shocking him. He yanks his hands from hers, fights the urge to run - _he's _the predator, not her - but this is impossible! Her face and hands gleam with light that has nothing to do with her aura. Any human could see this light, and her halo of red hair brightens to fiery intensity.

He wants to run. Needs to run. This cannot be!

"My name is Monica," she tells him, face shining with light that should sear his eyes, yet does not. "I am an Angel, sent by God, to help you."

x

He backs away from her. He'd never admit fear yet he'd forgotten this depth of terror. His fangs, excited by hunger, he's now ready to use to rend and tear, to defend him from this danger. His eyes, which he has never seen in any mirror since the night he crossed over, are undoubtedly still as red as those of any of his new fellows.

"Don't be afraid," she tells him again.

"Don't _me _be afraid?" He's astonished enough by her calm assurance to grasp for bravado he can't feel. An Angel could probably destroy him with a touch - and he'd touched her! "Have you any idea what I am?" She _can't _know and not be afraid. Everyone who's found out is afraid.

She stands there, the picture of assurance that a minute ago he'd felt. Her face, hands and legs glow, her hair is vibrant as fire. She lights the grass on which she stands almost as he remembers from when the sun had shown.

x

"Get away from me!" He's too scared to even pretend courage. She can incinerate him with a touch, yet her glow doesn't sear his eyes, doesn't burn his flesh. He's a creature of the devil, abandoned by God and condemned to the night and yet–

"You are one of God's children. He wants you to know He lo–"

He's at her before she can blink, his hands clench her throat before he remembers the danger. "Don't you _dare _tell me God loves–"

He sees his hands tight about her throat. She struggles to breathe, grimaces in pain but the light that shines from her is not diminished. Her hair is still bright with red fire. Her luminous hands pry at his - almost human strength that can't match his. "_How can I touch you_?"

He releases her quickly, falls a step back as she gasps for breath, her hands about her throat easing her hurt.

"How can I touch you? I can't touch _any _holy object. Its light burns my eyes, blinds me. Its touch is acid. A church burns my eyes from a block away!"

He's afraid to look at her, but he forces himself to. When fiery obliteration comes he wants to see it. He won't cower, terrified as he is. He's damned, but won't cower from doom.

But his eyes don't hurt. It's like looking at daylight - daylight he's missed for so long - but there's no agony.

"I'm not an inanimate object. I am an Angel."

"There are no Angels."

"There are no vampires," she counters.

"There are vampires."

"And there are Angels. God made both of us."

"_God didn't make me_! He maybe made me human – he turned _away _from me when I became a vampire!"

"God never turned away from you."

"He _did_! He _abandoned _me!" It still hurts. The abandonment hurts so much, just as it had that first day when he'd realized his damnation.

"God sent me to tell you He did not."

"You _can't_!"

x

His fangs, ever sharp and responsive to his emotions, nearly pierce him in his anger. "How dare you presume to know me?" She can't know him any more than she could know his pain, the unfair _betrayal_. "You don't know me."

"Martin O'Connell, of 'Pierce, O'Connell and McKay Investigations'–"

"That was– That's _over_."

"You and William and Linda wanted to do so much for your fellow man. Linda McKay loves–"

He almost leaps on her. "SHUT UP!"

"No." She didn't recoil from his aborted charge. She stands there as confident in her power as he used to be in his. "You may have run from love but love never runs from you."

"How do _you _know?"

"God is–"

"You may know facts," he steps up to within inches, anger overcoming fear, "you don't know _me_."

"God know–"

"SHUT UP!" He backhands her, the crack across her face loud. She's knocked face down to the grass. "What do you know of pain? Of agony? Of love _ripped _from you and _crushed _under foot?"

She turns and looks up at him. Blood that shines like a ruby in the sunlight flows from her nose in a line across her mouth. "I know pain."

x

Martin is amazed. An Angel bleeds like a real woman? But for the first time in so long the sight of red blood moves him not with hunger but pity. Regret. He doesn't care that it shines as her flesh does, only that he hurt her. He hadn't meant to hit her, to hurt her. He never wants to hurt, always tries not to.

"I'm sorry."

"Did you think I can't be hurt?"

He takes a step back. Back from the blood. He should leap onto her, force her down, bite her, drink her blood and be done.

He can't stand the thought.

"Clean it. I want it and it'd destroy me."

"It would nourish you."

"It'd _kill _me. It's not blood any more than you're a woman!"

"My blood is blood indeed. My tears are water indeed."

"You're not crying."

"I do. God does." She stands up, wipes the gleaming blood from her shining face. "He weeps for you."

"Tell him to save his tears. I'm not worth them."

"You ar–"

"Don't you _understand_?" He only manages to halt his charge before her, his fists clenched so they can't get around her throat. "I came to you ready to drink your blood because I have to. I _have _to! I wouldn't have killed you, you wouldn't even remember it, but I _have _to! It's impossible for a vampire to starve himself. I take it from you mercifully tonight or I rip it from you tomorrow but I do _take _it. God _can't _love that! I prey on his children. That is evil and I am evil."

"You were touched by evil, but it didn't make you evil. Neither did it make the one who turned you so. She is just more lost than you are, enamored of her fate and will not listen. You are not evil, you never were."

"What could _you _know?"

"Then tell me. Tell me of that night."

x

"What? _Tell _you how I couldn't get it up with Lin and it drove me into such a rage I destroyed her apartment but didn't hit her? Tell you how I wandered the city and into the arms of a prostitute? Tell you how I thought it'd give me another chance but she was a vampire and killed me? Tell you how I awoke with nothing but blind, mindless thirst that drove me back to Lin's apartment so I could kill _her_?"

"Yes. Tell me how you stood in front of her apartment but love overcame the hunger. Tell me how you realized the _real _evil is in that compulsion to kill those you love because they can set your soul free from the bonds that hold it. Tell me how you left New York rather than let her discover what a _mistake _had cost you. Tell me how you have tried to refrain from taking blood or hurting those you'd prey upon. Tell me how you devised what you believed was a method that compensated your victims to soothe your soul."

"Tell you how leaving that night, running from Lin, made me _murder _an innocent girl?"

"Yes, tell me that."

"I MURDERED HER!"

x

He doesn't care who might hear his scream. Agony endured and hidden so long rips it from the locked box in his still heart. "She was an innocent seventeen-year-old runaway who was hiding where I hid after leaving Lin's apartment but I couldn't control the bloodlust anymore and I took her like an animal and ripped her throat out and drank her blood and I MURDERED her!"

"And you have carried that guilt in your heart ever since," she says with such sincere sympathy it rips his heart to shreds.

"YES I'M GUILTY! I took an innocent girl who probably never hurt anyone and didn't deserve to die and I bit her and tore her throat out and MURDERED her."

"And since that first night, how many have you killed?"

"NO ONE!"

x

"No" she says with that terrible placidity, as though she's seen more than his heart and soul. "You learned how to control the urges, learned that you need only a small portion every few days. Learned how to take what you need to survive with what mercy and compassion you can offer, gently rather than viciously. Unlike some of your fellows, more lost than you, you feel and try to use compassion."

"But I still take their blood! I'm still a monster. I _can't _change that! God _hates _me!"

"He does not hate you."

"He won't forgive me. One mistake - that one night - and I'm condemned forever!"

"Oh, Martin, He _forgave _you that night. You called to Him in grief in that abandoned house and He forgave you."

"Never!" Did he forgive? Is it true? He's longed to be forgiven, begged so many times for it. But no, he can't have been "I live in sin! I can't stop it! I am a vampire!"

"Whenever you've sought forgiveness it has been granted, time and again"

"But I'm still a vampire! How can I be forgiven and be a vampire? Can I go back to my old life, to those I miss? To those I love? I love Lin with all my cold, still heart but I can't risk returning to her but every night my soul and body _scream _for her but I know what I'd do if I got close to her! I won't be able to stop myself! That is damnation!"

x

"But you control the lust. You are not a monster. You stand at a fork, Martin O'Connell. That is what I was sent to tell you. You stand on the edge of two destinies. One is to be the monster you fear, the other is to do good as the man - the vampire - you want to be."

"'The vampire I _want _to be'? I don't want to be a vampire! I want to be _dead_!"

"God doesn't want your death. He wants your life."

"I DON'T HAVE A LIFE!

"You have the life you were given, to make good use of."

"Good _use_? There _is _no good use."

"There is. You have it in you to overcome your lusts, to do good, to fulfill a purpose you go not yet want to admit you can."

"I want to be dead! How can you be an Angel and let a monster like me live? You should strike me down, smite me, use your powers to put me out of my _misery_."

"I'm not here to do that."

"What good can I do? I'm not a man, I'm a creature! I don't breathe, my heart doesn't beat, I'm an unnatural abomination, a monster who preys on women, attacks them in their innocence though I try not to hurt I can't stop myself. If you're from God, you have the power! You must! _Kill _me!"

"I won't."

"KILL ME!"

"No."

He grabs her shoulders. "KILL ME!" Forgetting superhuman strength, he shakes her so powerfully her head snaps with his thrusts. He stops, releases and backhands her, knocks her off her feet. The blow is so devastating her body twists in midair. She lands face down upon the grass. "KILL ME!"

He'll make her kill him, just to save herself.

x

He grabs her shoulders again, yanks her to her feet. This time her face is bloodied, her hair disheveled from the brutal shaking. "KILL ME!"

She's dazed, can't seem to focus on him. "No."

He releases her shoulder, smacks her, the crack loud in the quiet. "KILL ME, DAMN IT!" He backhands her, smacks her again. "KILL ME!"

Bleeding, bruises dark on her shining face, she's stunned but still manages to focus on him. "No."

Slamming his hands into her chest he shoves her away - too hard. She flies backward and crashes into a huge tree. The impact jars the thick tree, the leaves rustle from the titanic impact. She bounces forward and pitches face down onto the grass.

"DAMN IT, WON'T YOU EVEN DEFEND YOURSELF?"

But he feels the madness desert him, as though turned off by a switch, when he sees something that chills his cold body.

She's not glowing anymore.

x

She doesn't move.

"Monica?" he calls up to her. She lies still. "Monica?" He hurries to her, falls to his knees. "Monica?" She doesn't move. She has no _aura_.

He reaches out, touches her hair. It's wet. He turns his hand over. Her red blood that covers his hand is dark. It doesn't shine. It's no more than human.

"Oh, God. Monica, I'm sorry." He tries to move her, shakes her. She's still. "Monica, please, I'm sorry. I'm _sorry_!"

Tears he hasn't known in too long sting his eyes but the pain that sears his still heart is far worse. "Monica, _please _wake up." He takes her wrist, pulls up her sleeve, smears her arm with her blood. For the first time in months he feels no hunger for it.

He feels no pulse.

"No! No, I _can't_ have killed her. Not _again_!"

He looks up to the stars. They blur with his tears. He hasn't dared do this in months, now he will. _Someone _must be listening, watching.

x

"God, if you're there I'm _sorry_. I didn't mean to hurt her." He can barely speak. "I don't ever mean to hurt. I wanted her to free me, to kill me!" He looks down at her. She's still, dark, dead. Again he looks up, not sure if anyone's - no, someone has to be there. Someone has to listen! Lost in grief, in tears, months of agony find broken expression.

"Please. If she was right then I was wrong. I thought, I mean I only _thought _you turned away from me. Please don't turn now. Not from _her_! I was afraid - couldn't listen - _but I didn't want to hurt her_!" He clutches her still hand, repulsed by blood he'd longed for, needed but can't stand.

"I wanted her to hurt _me _but I was wrong." Tears he hasn't shed in so long steal his voice. "I was wrong. Please, you don't have to forgive me but please help her." He scrubs the tears from his cheeks, searches the sparkling sky. "She only wanted to help me and I was too afraid to hear. Please! You don't have to show a monster mercy but please show _her _mercy."

Her hand closes about his. "God gives everyone mercy," she tells him.

x

He's astonished, looks down into her smiling, shining face, unable to stop the tears. There's no blood, no wounds, just the shining. Even her disheveled hair is neatly arrayed. "How?"

"We're both of God, both equally his beloved."

"I don't deserve–"

"You do. You always have. You just believed you did not. That's why you tried to walk alone, not seeing that you had a friend who would walk with you."

"How? Look at what I did. I could've killed you."

She shakes her head. "God made me, only He will unmake me. But I can be hurt."

"I'm sorry."

"I forgive you."

"Because you're an Angel."

"I'm no less human than you are."

"What does that mean?"

"To be human is to be divine. You are of God and always have been. You carry the best part of Him in you as you always have, He wants you to grow into it. Your life has always been precious to Him. He loves you as a Father, and He also has a role for His son, He just asks that you take it. When you are close to understanding that, you are close to understanding yourself."

"But I hurt you. I killed you. You weren't shining."

"As you are a son of God I am His daughter. You can no more destroy me than I can you. But you had to be shown your heart."

"You _let _me do that."

"Fear is not evil. You needed to confront yourself, to pray for what you really wanted."

x

"I want to be alive. I want my old life back and can't have it. I can't look at a cross. Holy water is acid. A touch of any blessed object burns like fire. What can I think but that I'm damned for eternity - for one mistaken night? The blood lust rips at me to take from others, tears at me until I have to steal their blood today or it'll make me tear it from them tomorrow. What am I to think?"

"Satan is real," she assures him, "just as God is. But where he brings tortures, God brings the strength to fight him, and the power to turn our lives to good. We have only to want it. There is good in you, despite what was done _to _you. You have only to embrace it, and His love will guide you to your true destiny."

"How? How can I do good? The evil is a constant trial. It constantly tears at me."

"Oh, Martin, when has it ever been otherwise?"

x

Looking down into her luminous brown eyes, he feels the red fade from his own, his fangs shrink to human size. "He'll stay with me?"

"Always and forever."

"Will _you _stay with me?"

Her eyes look past him to Heaven. So many assignments to come, but so many Angels. She again meets his eyes. "We're as close as you want us to be."

He clasps her hand. There is no blood smeared on either of them.

"I'll try."

.

_Fin_


End file.
